


Christmas Wrapping

by rightonthelimit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 04:42:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightonthelimit/pseuds/rightonthelimit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom felt like he was alive, like Harry had awakened a potential inside of him that would've gone to waste if Tom had not crossed paths with him at all the right moments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Wrapping

**A/N: Please do not repost, recreate or translate.**

**Christmas Wrapping**

Tom Riddle hated Christmas.

He hated Christmas because he always had to put a fake, happy smile on his attractive face when in the presence of his parents, he had to eat at his grandparents' house at Christmas Eve while constantly having to endure annoying hands running through his hair and hear stupid 'compliments', (' _My my Tom, as the years pass you just keep growing taller and taller and you just look_ so  _much like your father. Such a handsome boy!_ ') and he had to unwrap gifts he hadn't asked for in the first place.

Tom had never asked for video games or even toys when he had been a little boy. At age six, Tom knew exactly what he had desired all along. It was the only gift his family's money couldn't buy.

He just wanted a friend.

Not just any kind of friend, mind you – he had it all figured out at that age. Tom wanted a friend that was honest and didn't hang out with Tom just because he had a flat screen TV in his bedroom. He wanted a friend that liked him for  _him_  and who wasn't afraid to tell Tom when he thought Tom was wrong (though honestly Tom never  _did_ make mistakes) and he wanted someone he could argue with every now and then. His friend wouldn't have to be intellectually on the same level per se, because Tom knew that someone of his intelligence who had all of the above qualities was impossible to find. (Tom himself wasn't genuine either, after all.)

He had been six years old when he had gotten into his first fight with another boy. The boy had had vivid green eyes and messy black hair and clothes too big for his short, skinny frame. Tom remembered having gone outside and just walking the streets. It had been Christmas Eve and he had been so sick and tired of his parents and other relatives that he had just snuck out when no one had been looking. He remembered how cold the wind had been on his flushed cheeks, how he had stuffed his hands – by that time already large for his age – into his pockets and just trudged through the snow. There had been another boy, and he had looked up from the bench he had been sitting on when Tom walked past him.

'Hey – hey boy!' the boy had called obnoxiously. Tom had turned around in irritation. He hadn't very much liked boys of his age. They were childish and selfish and always looked up to Tom, like he always knew what to do.

Which was true.

Tom was exceptionally clever for his age and had already known how to read at age 4 and he had been able to write most letters of the alphabet at age 3, but that didn't mean he wanted to share his knowledge with other kids.

'What?' he had simply asked. The boy's glasses had been broken and he had had dirt on his nose. He was so unlike the other kids Tom knew because everyone Tom knew was rich and he realized he must've walked too far away from home. He was amongst middle-class people now. It didn't worry Tom though - he had been here a couple of times before with his mother when she had to go visit the dentist in town and he knew his way back home. He always did.

'Why aren't you with your family?'

Tom had blinked in confusion.

'Why should I tell you?' he had asked in return. The boy huffed.

'It's not polite to answer a question with another question, you know!'

'Yeah, well, it's not polite to randomly  _start_  asking me questions without introducing yourself. You don't know me,' Tom had replied with a small frown on his face. The boy blinked at him from behind his glasses before he slid down the bench and held out his hand.

'My name is Harry,' the boy had said. Tom had stared at his hands, at the little holes in his gloves before he had released a frustrated sigh, knowing he wouldn't get rid of the boy any time soon.

'My name is Tom,' he replied and then absentmindedly added, '…figured your name would be common.'

Harry sputtered. 'W-What?' he had exclaimed. Tom remembered to this day that this had been the first time someone hadn't just  _accepted_ his sarcastic comments. 'Well who names their kid Tom anyways? That's a cat name!'

Tom had blinked in confusion. In actual, genuine confusion and he was at a loss for what to say. It wasn't even a good insult or anything and Tom had just been stating a fact, but he had been so shocked that someone had talked back to him that he hadn't known what to say. The boy named Harry huffed and shoved his little hands into his pockets.

'You have dirt on your nose, and your clothes are torn and too big for you,' Tom had said stupidly instead as if needing to remind himself that he was  _better_ than this kid. That he was well groomed and had expensive clothes and would get new ones the moment a speck of dirt would get on them.

'That's not my fault,' the boy had snapped, 'my aunt and uncle make me wear my cousin's old clothes and I just tripped.'

Was this what all middle-class families were like? Tom hadn't been capable of stopping the boy when he had abruptly turned around and walked away, disappearing in the snow storm. When Tom had gotten home that night his father had yelled at him and his mother had cried in relief, but he hadn't been capable of forgetting the boy with the green eyes.

But as the years had passed, he had. The memory had been tucked somewhere in the back of his mind, but it was a memory of having learnt something. It was like having learned how to ride a bike, how to tie your shoelaces… as time passed you would grow to forget what color that bike had been, how the shoelaces had felt in between your fingers when you had tied them. You'd forget about how hot the sun had felt on your face or how comfortable the chair or the floor where you had been sitting on had been. All that remained was the fact that you  _had_ learned something and the feeling of it.

What Tom had learned from the boy, was that even against all that he had experienced, there were still people out there that wouldn't treat him like he was better than them.

* * *

Eleven years later Tom was sitting at the dinner table, twirling his spoon in his hands and staring out in front of him. They had just finished eating dinner and his relatives were merrily chatting with one another whilst he just sat there, feeling bored beyond measure. He tried to amuse himself by coming up ways to kill people – not that he'd actually do it, but he had been so bored since he had already finished all of his homework last week that he had decided to give video games a try today. They haven't had a very good influence on his mind.

Who knew mushrooms could make Italian plumbers grow.

When he had reached number 49 (puncturing the eye with something sharp and long enough to get into the brain) he dropped his spoon, disgusted by himself. Honestly, what the hell - did every teenage boy think like that?

'Mother, may I be excused?' he asked and his mother looked up from where she had been talking to his grandfather. She blinked her dull eyes at him. Her looks were… bearable, this evening. Although no makeup or jewelry or dress could save her from being unattractive, the dress complimented her skin tone and the extensions she wore in her hair made her hair look thicker and softer.

'Are you alright, dear?' she asked and Tom hummed.

'Just need some air,' he replied. She nodded and smiled at him. She had gotten her teeth fixed as well – they were stark white and straight now, like Tom's were. The only difference was that Tom had never really gone through any pain nor effort to achieve his looks that always made him so popular amongst people. He pushed himself up and kissed the top of her head out of habit. His father had never shown his mother much affection and she had always been kind to Tom, so he had grown up with the idea that if no one showed his mother that she was an okay person, he would have to. He respected his mother more than his father anyway.

'I'll be back in ten minutes,' he promised her. Her smile didn't falter and Tom forced himself to smile in return, before walking out of the room. Merope went back to talking to Tom's grandfather.

The sound of his steps seemed to bounce off the marble floors, echo on the walls once he walked into the hallway. Tom didn't like the emptiness wealth brought along, he disliked the dishonesty it caused. Tom just longed for something more, something money couldn't buy… So maybe he didn't just want a friend. Maybe he wanted someone who could be more to him than a friend.

He had always known he was gay. He simply knew it because girls were the worst and he hated them more than anything. Hated how they batted their lashes at him and applied just that extra layer of lipgloss on their lips when he was in the room, and how they  _smelt_ like flowers and sweet things and hairspray… he liked guys. He liked that smell that was always so thick in the locker room (he had convinced his parents that he should go to a local high school instead of a private school, so that he would be capable of 'building up character'); the smell of boy and sweat and soap. He had never understood that fascination other boys felt with breasts. Weren't they just clumps of fat and glands? What was the big deal in that? Ofcourse, his parents didn't know he was gay. Not yet, anyway. It was none of their concern. It wasn't like other people introduced themselves as heterosexual either, so why should Tom?

Tom's arms slipped into the sleeves of his coat and he put his gloves on. He stepped outside, into the cold winter air. It was such a contradiction to the earlier warmth that it was like a slap in the face, but a good one. He liked to think that it was almost poetic, in a sense – how his family was this sheltered heat (cage?) from the cold but  _real_ world outside. The snowflakes clung to his hair and lashes, and Tom licked his lips. The sound of snow crunching underneath his shoes somehow just felt so more like home than the emptiness inside his house that made his every noise seem so loud.

Tom had never told his parents, not even his mother, that he went to the middle-class part of town every now and then. He didn't go too often and not for any particular reason –just to walk around and see how normal people functioned. It had come to his conclusion a very long time ago (maybe he had been 7 years old?) that money could not buy happiness at all.

It only bought comfort.

Admittedly the sort of comfort it bought was kind of suffocating, but if Tom was a hundred percent honest he knew he would miss the luxury when he'd be stripped off it. He would manage, ofcourse, but it would be life changing. He sort of had a déjà vu feeling when he walked past a bench and saw a boy sitting on it, hunched over and his face aimed to the ground. Tom stopped walking and wondered to himself where he had seen this person before.

'Are you alright?' he asked without really thinking. The boy looked up at him, his pale face illuminated by the street lights. His eyes seemed to flicker behind his broken glasses and he frowned a bit, but didn't reply. Strangely that didn't bother Tom at all and maybe it was because the words he spoke usually never went unheard, but it was like a breath of fresh air. Someone being rude to him was almost  _nice_.

Tom sighed and sat down next to him. The bench felt cold to his bottom and his back, and the boy probably thought the same because he was shivering. His jacket didn't seem to offer much warmth but the only one who felt out of place was Tom. Here Tom was, sitting in his designer clothes not too far away from home, but far enough, watching snowflakes fall from the sky next to someone he didn't even know.

And it still felt better than home.

'I hate my family,' Tom said randomly, and saying the words out loud made him realize how true they were. He hated his family just so much, with how all they cared for were politics and money and maintaining a good name. With how they made his own home feel like it wasn't a home after all. He released a soft breath and watched as a little cloud formed right in front of his mouth. The boy was staring unblinkingly at him.

'Why did you say that?' the boy asked in honest confusion. He seemed to hesitate before he leaned backwards as well, his hands still stuffed in his pockets. Tom shrugged.

'I've never said such thing out loud before,' Tom replied honestly. The boy seemed uncomfortable, like he didn't know how to reply, but Tom felt perfectly content even with the cold biting at the scarce amount of skin that was exposed to the cold wind.

'Oh,' the boy just said eventually, uselessly. He turned his head to stare out in front of himself again. The way Tom was studying his face probably made him feel even more uncomfortable, but Tom paid no attention to it. He wasn't moving away anyway and it had been the other boy to be rude in the first place. It, admittedly, also felt nice not to be chastised for his behavior constantly.

The boy's lips looked chapped and thick snowflakes clung to his hair as well, contradicting the inky black tone of it sharply. His skin almost seemed to be glowing and Tom mused with the idea of this boy probably not getting much sunlight. Why was he outside when it was Christmas anyway?

'Why are you out here?' Tom asked. The boy looked normal, and he knew that middle-class families had much more fun celebrating this holiday than Tom did. The boy shrugged.

'My relatives always kick me out during Christmas,' he said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Tom looked at him in mild surprise. 'They don't want me around. I live with my aunt and uncle and cousin, you see. My parents died when I was 1. Car accident.' He sounded like he had rehearsed this in his mind, or like he had been telling himself this over and over or like someone else had done so. Maybe his relatives had.

'I'm sorry that happened to you,' Tom said, not because he actually felt it but because he had been told to be compassionate or at least act so. To be a gentleman. The boy said nothing to acknowledge it and they sat in silence for a couple of minutes, just breathing. It wasn't uncomfortable or tense, though, and it was unlike what Tom had experienced before. Silences were never good back home. They were normal with this boy.

'How long do you normally sit here?' he asked nonetheless as his curiosity was piqued. The boy shrugged.

'I usually sneak back into the house around 1 am.' It was kind of really sad that someone had to go through this. Tom knew that the world was cruel but he had never actually met someone who had experienced that beforehand. It was interesting, and new, and he wanted to ask all sorts of questions but in the end he didn't. He opened his mouth to say something else, but his phone vibrated in his pocket. He glanced at it to see it was his mother. He probably had been away for too long.

'You don't have to stay,' the boy said and Tom looked at him in surprise again, 'I don't mind if you go. I'm glad... that I could talk to you.'

The boy smiled at Tom, and it looked more genuine than anything Tom had seen this night. He could just blink rather uncharacteristically, unsure why anyone would be this grateful with a bit of company from a stranger. The boy was strange, Tom concluded. He didn't even look sad anymore. Tom nodded, feeling like he was somehow obligated to do something.

'My name is Tom Riddle,' he said, and the boy blinked as though he remembered something. He held out his hand and the boy's hand curled into his. His fingers felt like ice, even through Tom's gloves.

'I'm Harry Potter,' he replied. Tom nodded and then without really thinking he took off his watch.

'Here. You can have it,' he said. He didn't get where this sudden need of doing  _something_ for this boy came from – it wasn't pity, Tom noticed he was grateful as well for having had a simple conversation with someone – and their fingers brushed when Harry took them.

'Thank you,' he said, staring at the watch like he had never had a present before. He probably hadn't.

'It's not a gift,' Tom said and Harry looked up at him, 'it's just so you can see around what time you can go back home. It's 10 pm now, and my family is usually done with everything around midnight. I can get a new one tomorrow anyway.' Harry nodded slowly, and Tom nodded as well. It was like they had reached an understandment: that Harry wasn't a charity case and that Tom didn't pity him. He turned around and walked back home. When his mother had asked him why he hadn't picked up his phone and where his watch was, he simply said he had gotten robbed. He threw his phone out the window, never having liked getting called when he left the house to get away from everything in the first place.

* * *

Years passed before they met again.

Tom Riddle was 19 years old when he was sitting in a cafe, circling job ads with a red pen whilst absentmindedly nibbling on a cookie he had dipped in his coffee before. The chocolate coating had melted a bit, staining his spidery fingers brown which he sucked into his mouth to keep from leaving fingerprints on his newspaper. The taste was rich on his tongue and lingered in the insides of his cheeks, forcing him to wash it down with a sip of his coffee. He pulled a face – he had waited too long and it was now only lukewarm, bordering to downright cold.

The café wasn't too crowded, its wooden tables were small and its chairs comfortable. He hadn't been there before, but something told him that he would become a regular pretty soon. He liked the vague background music and the coffee was great. Tom smelt the scent of the sandwich the man sitting at the table in front of him if he inhaled deep enough and struggled not to keep from wrinkling up his nose in distaste at the other male's terrible table manners.

Tom was tired and had dark circles under his eyes. He had been living off of his savings for about a year now and although he still had plenty to last him at least three more without working, he needed something to keep his mind off things.

His mother had died last year of cancer. When they had found the tumor it had been too late and the final weeks of her life were painful. At one point she hadn't even been capable of using the bathroom by herself anymore and Tom had vowed to himself to never allow himself to become like that. Her hair had been falling out again and she had lost an unsightly amount of weight, rendering her frail, unattractive and unhappy at the end of her life. It hadn't mattered what doctors, medicines or surgeries they had gotten her. It hadn't made a difference in the end at all.

His father had found another woman soon enough. She was beautiful, but ignorant and vile and everything his own mother hadn't been. Tom sometimes had to stop and wonder to himself if most men were willing to live with a demon, as long as it was a beautiful one.

After the loss of his mother Tom had been a bit lost because she had been the only one to genuinely care for him. He had started going out more and had stupidly brought a guy home one night. His father had walked in on them having sex.

Tom had been disowned this year. Luckily his name had had some influence, still, and he had managed to get his own apartment in town a week after it had happened. Strangely he felt no pain at all. He just felt relief. He finally didn't have to be the perfect son anymore, he didn't have to put up a front… he could be Tom. Just Tom – not Tom Marvolo  _Riddle_. And of course this had closed a lot of doors for him, but Tom kind of liked the idea of starting over new and working for everything by himself. To actually  _earn_ his success through sheer hard work and to prove his father wrong. Just to spite him.

'Would you like anything else, sir?'

Tom reluctantly tore his eyes off the ads and looked up into the green eyes of the waiter, surprised recognition hitting him. Granted, his skin didn't look so pale anymore, his hair was still a mess, he didn't look stick thin anymore and he looked more healthy and overall good, but… it was him alright.

Strange, how he kept meeting this boy at turning points.

'Harry?' he said automatically in recognition. He hadn't expected to see the boy anymore, even if his story had always been somewhere in the back of his mind. There was something different about him, now. Tom hadn't instantly figured it out but the way Harry held himself… it was more confident, somehow. He looked younger than he had looked when Tom had met him three years ago.

Better.

Harry blinked. His eyes no longer hid behind those broken glasses either and from behind his apron he wore clothes that actually fitted him and didn't have any holes in them.

'Tom?' Harry asked, lowering his hand from where it had been holding a pen over a small notebook, 'Tom Riddle?' Something on Harry's wrist glimmered when it caught the light, and Tom instantly recognized his watch.

_He had worn it all these years._

Harry smiled and the sight was so adorable Tom could feel the corners of his mouth twitch upwards as well. No one besides his mother had actually smiled at Tom like that, not without wanting anything in return. What was this feeling?

Tom nodded and Harry's eyes flicked at another waitress who was glaring at him. He released a long sigh and the smile faded off his face again and Tom resented that. 'Can I get you something?' Harry asked with an annoyed tone in his voice, 'She'll have my head if I don't get back to work.'

Tom glanced at the girl with brown hair, noticing the way she was almost glaring at the both of them – mainly Harry though – and recognized her to be the one to bring him his coffee. He shook his head. 'No thank you, I was actually thinking about leaving soon.' There was disappointment in Harry's eyes for a very brief moment and Tom noticed it instantly. He glanced back at her as if trying to figure out if she could overhear him and then just decided not to give a damn about what people thought of him.

He had passed that stage a long time ago, if it had even been an option.

'Would you like to go for a drink with me, after work?' Tom asked. Harry's grin was back in place and yes, he definitely did look younger and more attractive when he smiled.

'Are you asking me out?' he asked playfully –  _God he had changed so_ much,  _what had happened to him?_  – and Tom smirked.

'Is it working?' he asked in return. Harry opened his mouth to reply, only for the waitress from before to suddenly stand right next to him. She startled Harry and he jumped, looking rather comical with the way his arms started flailing around.

'Is everything alright, sirs?' she asked. Her shiny nametag read Hermione, and Tom found he disliked her. Harry looked uncomfortable, but it wasn't in the way he had been when Tom had stated he hated his relatives. This was more awkward, instead of nervous, like he didn't know what to say for a moment. He looked flustered.

'I apologize,' Tom said and she ceased her glaring at Harry to blink her brown eyes at him, 'I was just asking him for the directions to the nearest library.' She blinked again and her cheeks flushed, probably in shame, before she nodded. She walked off again and Harry ran a hand through his hair.

'I get off at six,' Harry said hurriedly and then he went back to work. Tom's eyes followed him for a moment, sliding over the back of his long neck, down his back and temporarily stopping to stare his ass, before his legs trailed down to his thighs and down to his ankles. He felt the corners of his mouth kick up.

He hadn't been on a date in forever. Ever since his father had kicked him out he had been freer to do whatever the hell he wanted with whoever he wanted, and it had been a kind of freedom he had used to the fullest, but he had never actually found someone worthwhile and things had been staring to bore him after a while again. But… he was looking forward to tonight. He folded his newspaper and tucked it into his leather book bag, throwing a couple of coins on the table before leaving. Harry's eyes met his on his way out, and Harry smiled softly before he went back to taking up someone's order again.

* * *

They went out drinking that night, and the nights that followed too. Every night was filled with laughter and on their fifth date, when Tom had been walking Harry home, they shared their first kiss. It hadn't been passionate or raw like the other kisses Tom had experienced before – it had been drawn out, testing. As if they were both trying each other out for the fast time rather than rushing into what they both had in mind.

Harry tasted of the hot chocolate he had drunk earlier and of something that could only be described as Harry. His lips had been soft and his tongue had been shy, just like the hands that had slid into Tom's hair had been. He had stood on the tips of his toes while snow gently fell from the sky in thick flakes, clinging to their hair and Harry's lashes just like all those years ago.

When they had parted Harry had smiled at him. He hadn't blushed like Tom had somehow expected him to though the tip of his nose  _had_ turned a rather adorable shade of pink. He looked stupidly happy. Tom wanted to ask what had happened these past years to Harry, but he knew it would be too soon and Harry wouldn't answer those questions just yet. So instead he just leaned in for another kiss and this one involved more tongue, and was more heated.

'Hmm,' Harry hummed happily against his lips. 'Wanna have another drink?'

'Yes,' Tom had replied, and they had stumbled backwards into the apartment.

They wound up not drinking anything at all. They touched, tasted and teased each other instead. It was soft and sweet, at times, and then again it was hard and fast at the same time.

Harry told Tom about his life once they were basking in the aftermath. About how his relatives had kicked him out two years after Harry met Tom again. About how he had wound up living on his own in this apartment, and how much he had had to struggle to get by, making Tom feel strange about the way he had seen life these past years. Like his problems had been trivial and how different things would've been, had he not been as privileged. They lied on the floor, their limbs still entangled, Tom's fingers brushing through Harry's hair every now and then.

'And then I met you again when I was sixteen,' Harry confessed, 'I didn't know who you were and you kinda creeped me out, but I just felt this stupid need to talk to you. I looked for you, you know. In town. I never did manage to find you.'

Tom said nothing, but at the same time he knew that Harry was aware of the fact that what he had said had been heard. His lingering caresses turned into hungry kissing and before they knew it they were backing up into Harry's bedroom, stumbling over stray articles of clothes that Harry hadn't had the time - or motivation, he was still a  _boy_ after all - to clean up, falling into the bed in a laughing, breathing and groping heap of limbs. There were no clothes in their way, no need for preparation as Harry was still relaxed and slick with Tom's come from their last few times, and their bodies were warm and fitted well against one another. Harry was writhing and mumbling random shit Tom could care less for when Tom sat up, way too engrossed in making their bodies  _one_ again. There was just something about this boy...

He filled Harry up to the hilt, but what surprised him most was that he was losing count. He was losing count of the times he had wanted Harry like this, of the times they had actually done this, of how many times his stubborn heart had skipped beats because of these emotions he was experiencing ever since meeting this boy. Tom felt like he was alive, like Harry had awakened a potential inside of him that would've gone to waste if Tom had not crossed paths with him at all the right moments.

He was kind, of course he was. When it came to Harry he always would be. He rocked them back and forth, not quite setting up a pace but very close to doing so, having Harry cling at his shoulders and sneer at him to  _fucking move_ and then laughing because it was so very typical. Harry always had been more blunt.

He didn't know how long he kept it up like that - teasing Harry, torturing him. Holding a grip on him just like Harry had on him through all those years, even if it hadn't been consciously or purposefully. He thrust into, he fucked, he kissed, he filled and he caressed Harry until he couldn't anymore. Until he fell apart and finally came and felt Harry come as well.

The bed was soft but small, forcing Harry to lie on top of Tom. His hand was absentmindedly tracing circles on Tom's chest and he had that silly smile on his face. They talked about stupid things that night, from Harry's supervisor Hermione Granger ('I swear to God Tom, she was so pissed off when you told her I was actually doing my work – she's dying to find reason to fire me so her boyfriend can take my job') to more serious issues like Tom's own family. He had been barely awake, yet he kept his eyes open, kept listening to Harry laugh and kept watching him smile because it was a privilege.

Tom had never experienced a night that had felt like it had lasted forever yet was over way too fast. The same went for the years that followed.

Tom found a job as a salesman a week after that night. He had found enjoyment in his work, strangely; everyone just treated him like he was a normal person and not like he was better than them. Everything he experienced was new, raw - no one feared Tom's father. They just saw Tom as a person. The fact that he had sold more in one week than his colleagues had in an entire month wasn't too bad, either.

Neither were the lunch breaks he could spend with Harry.

As the years passed Tom slowly opened his own store, and then another, and another… before his twenty-fifth birthday, Tom was the owner of one of the most successful chain stores in England and he was thinking about going abroad. His father had tried to contact Tom once he had heard of his success, but Tom never had wanted the man back in his life. He had everything he needed – the money, success… Harry…

Harry had always been like an open book to him, yet a mystery at the same time. He could explain why Harry would do certain things, but when he tried to over-analyze Harry he found he couldn't. Harry was too complicated. He was a walking contradiction.

The one thing that had always remained a mystery had been how Harry had evolved from a depressed, abused teenager to the playful, cocky young man he was now. Harry had never told him that that night he had met Tom again, he had regained his hope in humanity. Just from receiving kindness from a total stranger, whom he had had no ties with.

It had always been the little things that had made everything better for Harry.

 


End file.
